Had the epiphany

[Brokenempath]

I recently realized that my husband has NPD. We’ve been together almost 18 years and looking back wondering why I’ve always dealt with depression, anxiety, adhd and can’t get better regardless of medications. It feels like he’s just picking and picking away at my self esteem all these years by critiquing or correcting even the most mundane things, putting me down “jokingly” in front of others, always looking at me with this look of disappointment. More I write about it the more I’m like what was I thinking. I wouldn’t say he’s a bad guy. He didn’t have the best childhood and I understand that can lead to this BPD. I just feel like after all of this time, I have nothing left to give. My mind and body are just plain exhausted. I still have kids to raise and I have nothing left in me for them. I told him I want to separate and only time I’ve seen him really cry besides the death of his brother and has been acting very attentive and helpful as well as agreed to therapy, which is nice but I have so much anger I feel done.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[SinisterComplex]

I recently realized that my husband has NPD. We’ve been together almost 18 years and looking back wondering why I’ve always dealt with depression, anxiety, adhd and can’t get better regardless of medications. It feels like he’s just picking and picking away at my self esteem all these years by critiquing or correcting even the most mundane things, putting me down “jokingly” in front of others, always looking at me with this look of disappointment. More I write about it the more I’m like what was I thinking. I wouldn’t say he’s a bad guy. He didn’t have the best childhood and I understand that can lead to this BPD. I just feel like after all of this time, I have nothing left to give. My mind and body are just plain exhausted. I still have kids to raise and I have nothing left in me for them. I told him I want to separate and only time I’ve seen him really cry besides the death of his brother and has been acting very attentive and helpful as well as agreed to therapy, which is nice but I have so much anger I feel done.

Hey BE...first welcome.  We are happy to have you join the fam. 

I can tell you have a lot going on inside. The good news is that this place is truly a safe harbor. Feel free to share. The team here and the members here will be a good resource for you.

The only important thing I want to touch on is that we do not want to jump to conclusions or labeling. Now if your husband was officially diagnosed that would be a different discussion.

Right now you only know that your husband has abnormal behaviors. There could be a host of issues at play. That is why we have to be careful.

We will all be more than happy to listen and help point you in the right direction. Please feel free to take the stage here and vent and share as much as you want or need to.

Keep your head and most importantly please be kind to you and truly take care of yourself. You gotta love YOU to get through any turmoil.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

[Brokenempath]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the reply. Yes you’re right - he hasn’t been officially diagnosed anything. He said he found a place to start therapy at, so hopefully that will begin soon.

I feel very alone. I feel like I knew this wasn’t a healthy relationship a year or so into it, but I forced it to avoid moving back in with my parents. He got me my job at the time for a company that he worked at and his MIL did too. I guess I was too young and dumb. I’ve never been known to have the best self esteem. Even though in my heart I know I am worthy, I always put others first. I HATE hurting people. One of my reasons for living I feel is to make others feel good and putting smiles on their faces. Basically making others happy, makes me happy. My husband has so much resentment of his parents. I guess he spent a lot of time as a kid hanging out in bars with them and I think I wanted to take care of him. My parents are still married and I have a pretty big family, which he doesn’t, so I was happy he could be a part of it and see what that was like.

My ex before him was the exact opposite. Had very well to do, loving family. Once we broke up, I realized how he had been manipulating me. I did individual and group therapy at the time.

So when I met my husband, I was like he’s the exact opposite he won’t do the same to me. But now here I am, all these years later realizing I lost myself again bc I never cleaned the right way or every meal I made had some tweak I never did it good enough. I resent doing either of those things now bc I don’t want to be judged. Same with grocery shopping. “Can’t you just find the deals and not buy this or that” I get anxiety every time I’m in the checkout line! I don’t know if he does it on purpose, but every time he looks at me it’s with disappointment. I remember being at our friends house maybe a year ago and I was talking and caught him looking at me and I said “why are you looking at me like that” thinking maybe I had said the wrong thing and the friend said something like that’s why he married you. And I thought to myself, no maybe that’s why you look at your wife, but when my husband giving me that look I know I must’ve did or said something wrong. It’s just slowly bit by bit torn away at my soul and now here I am. I’ve talked to some of my family about my desire to leave and they want us to just work on it. I’ve been so good about keeping it together (medication and LOTS of praying) I don’t think anyone believes me that I could feel as hurt as I do. I was reading to my parents basically like a journal entry I had in my phone notes from 2019 how I felt he was treating me, crying as I read it and my mom just talking over me oh here’s a good couples therapy weekend. I snapped can someone please just listen to me. Needless to say, we are scheduled for this weekend in a couple weeks and it makes my body tense thinking about it.

We have 4 kids 12 & under that I’m making an effort for, but I can’t keep giving & giving. My oldest is showing signs of low self esteem & control issues that I would prefer to put my focus on and the other 3 at this point. I said I would rather be single and alone than keep having the life sucked out of me by my partner.

[ForeverDad]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the reply. Yes you’re right - he hasn’t been officially diagnosed anything. He said he found a place to start therapy at, so hopefully that will begin soon.

Many of us here never did get a diagnosis for those in our relationships.  So a good approach is to focus on the behaviors and behavior patterns.

Just attending therapy sessions does not mean he is applying it in his life and thinking.  The important matter is not mere attendance but whether his behaviors improve sufficiently.

Those of us here who decided ending the relationship through divorce or distancing found out that family court doesn't pursue diagnosing, it doesn't try to fix people.  On the other hand, it does make decisions to address the documented behaviors and behavior patterns.  I've come to describe court orders as a legal version of Boundaries, see our Tools and Skills workshops, limiting the poor behaviors to some extent.

My oldest is showing signs of low self esteem & control issues that I would prefer to put my focus on and the other 3 at this point. I said I would rather be single and alone than keep having the life sucked out of me by my partner.

This comment reminds me of a quote from a book written back in the mid-80s.  Although only you can decide which way to proceed with your life, it did highlight an important perspective.

A few decades ago the book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce had an interesting observation on page 195 by one participant, As the saying goes, "I'd rather come from a broken home than live in one."  Ponder that.  Taking action, as appropriate, will enable your lives or at least a part of your lives to be spent be in a calm, stable environment - your home, wherever that may be - away from the blaming, emotional distortions, pressuring demands and manipulations, unpredictable ever-looming rages and outright chaos.

In short, you can choose to make the best of a lousy situation, whether you (1) stay with demonstrated improvement, (2) "stay for now" pending improvement or (3) whether you go.  The reasonable best.

Your decisions of course will be affected by your spouse's actions and behaviors.  But it's always up to you to decide what boundaries you will set in your life, what you will do or not do, etc.

[Sluggo]

Brokenempath,

Similar experience...
I always felt like it was a death of a 1000 cuts.  Each slight or misbehavior was not individually a big deal but it was a cut.  After 18 years, the1000 cuts ended up killing...  

Sluggo

[Cat Familiar]

I understand how a hypercritical partner can undercut your self esteem. I experienced that in my first marriage.

You sound like a very compassionate person, someone who is a people pleaser. This is a fine characteristic…up to a point. When you start to let other people’s responses to you define your own well being, then you veer into codependency. https://bpdfamily.com/content/codependency-codependent-relationships

After I divorced my first husband, I started therapy with a very wise old blind woman. I remember her saying, “We’ve got to build you a self.” At the time, I was mystified, and a little insulted, about this. Later on I realized what she meant.

I had been trained in my family of origin that looking at my own wants and needs was “selfish” so I should pay attention to helping others instead of focusing on myself. The result of this pattern was that I did not know what I wanted, so I was eager to help people I loved achieve what they wanted. This set me up to be an easy target for abusers.

Being constantly criticized is abuse. I didn’t recognize it in my marriage because my mother had behaved the same way, and said it was for *my own good*. 

In a nutshell, it’s easy to tell you how to not let his behavior impact you as much. But it’s much harder to do.

You need to do things that you enjoy, which can be difficult since your time is consumed with taking care of kids and household tasks. But perhaps you can squeeze in time for something that feeds your soul: taking walks, doing art, journaling, spending time with friends, watching a movie, etc.

So what if he criticizes you? It likely comes from his own lack of self esteem that he’s projecting upon you. I found it helpful to nurture my own *inner narcissist*. Yes, we all have narcissistic tendencies—it’s a matter of survival of the species to take care of ourselves. It’s good to balance taking care of yourself with taking care of others, and it seems you’ve put way too much emphasis on the latter.

Having a thick skin about critical comments and letting them roll off your back is very helpful. It’s like psychological Aikido—not letting him get to you by those comments. Again this is easier said than done. I found one way to do this was channeling my anger into cold, steely indifference. It was really satisfying to let him know that his pattern of manipulation was no longer working.

Take a look at the Tools section above and keep posting! 

Cat

[formflier]

  “We’ve got to build you a self.” At the time, I was mystified, and a little insulted, about this.

In the same train of thought as this quote.  It's important to realize with extreme clarity whose "job" it is to "build you up".   Hint..peek in the mirror.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that pwBPD should be able to "cut us down"...but it's really not "just enough" to get them to stop doing that.  Someone still needs to "build you".

You are worth it!  Build yourself up!

Best,

FF

[mitten]

I feel very alone. I feel like I knew this wasn’t a healthy relationship a year or so into it, but I forced it to avoid moving back in with my parents. He got me my job at the time for a company that he worked at and his MIL did too. I guess I was too young and dumb. I’ve never been known to have the best self esteem. Even though in my heart I know I am worthy, I always put others first. I HATE hurting people. One of my reasons for living I feel is to make others feel good and putting smiles on their faces. Basically making others happy, makes me happy.

Hopefully this makes you feel a little "less alone" but many people stay in BPD/NPD relationships for these very same reasons.  It's hard to break off a relationship with a BPD/NPD because of the fear of conflict and they are great at manipulation and tugging at your heart, and they often appear normal to the outside world.